High Energy Neutrino Astronomy and Neutrino Telescopes

Abstract

Neutrinos constitute a unique probe since they escape from their sources, travel undisturbed on cosmological distances and are produced in high-energy (HE) hadronic processes. In particular they would allow a direct detection and unambiguous identification of the acceleration sites of HE baryonic cosmic rays (CR), which remain unknown.Recent results from the ICECUBE collaboration present the first highly significant indication for the detection of high-energy extraterrestrial neutrinos, after several decades of instrumental efforts. We briefly report on this important results which open the route for the high-energy neutrino astronomy era. We then focus on the ANTARES detector, which despite its modest size with respect to ICECUBE is the largest deep-sea neutrino telescope in the world. The primary goal is to search for astrophysical neutrinos in the TeV-PeV range. This comprises generic searches for any diffuse cosmic neutrino flux as well as more specific searches for astrophysical sources such as active galactic nuclei or Galactic sources. The search program also includes multi-messenger analyses based on time and/or space coincidences with other cosmic probes. The ANTARES observatory is sensitive to a wide-range of other phenomena, from atmospheric neutrino oscillations to dark matter annihilation or potential exotics such as nuclearites and magnetic monopoles. The most recent results are reported.